Shallow Weather and Topography
Questions and Survey
Please email your responses to paul.joe@ec.gc.ca by Jan 14 2009.
1. What is average or characteristic of the following (please provide a reference for your
answers, i.e., report, paper, book):
Size
[microns or
mm]
Average
Intensity
[mm/h,
cm/h]
Or Liquid
Water
Content
[g/m3]
Number of
particles in a
cubic meter
Calculate Z
[mm6/m3]
Calculate
dBZ
Leave this
empty if you
wish.
Leave this
empty if you
wish.
Fog
Drizzle
Rain
Snow
Reference:
2. What is the average depth or height of the following (in your area):
Summer
Height [km]
Fog
Drizzle
Convective
Rain
Stratiform Rain
Freezing Level
Snow (system)
Snow (local,
lake effect, etc)
Reference (if any):
Winter
Height [km]
3. Fill the following table (for your area)?
Maximum
Intensity
[mm/h] or
Liquid Water
Content [g/m3]
Minimum
Winter
Height [km]
Fog
Drizzle
Convective
Rain
Stratiform Rain
Freezing Level
Snow (system)
Snow (local,
lake effect, etc)
Reference (if any):
4. What are the (approximate) height (in km) and the width (in km) of a 0.5o/1o beam
scanning at 0.5o/1o elevation angle at 50/100 km range?
0.5o beamwidth
Elevation Angle 0.5o
1.0o
1.0o beamwidth
0.5o
1.0o
Range
50 km
100 km
5. These are questions about your familiarity with your radars and your radar network?
You may need to ask a local person. (See excel spread sheet.)
Sub-question 8 and 13 will require a few sentences submitted separately (in this
document) from the excel spread sheet.
1. How many radars are in your network?
2. Are they C or S band?
3. Are they magnetrons or klystrons or other?
4. What are beamwidths?
5. What is the lowest angle of scanning?
6. What is the maximum range? (Multiple answers for different scan modes
acceptable)
7. What is the highest angle of scanning for weather surveillance? Some radars do
special scans for wind profiling or other? I am interested in what the highest
elevation used for generating images
8. What is the cycle time of the radars? If your scan strategy is complex, you may
describe in words here.
9. What is the minimal detectable signal or sensitivity of the radar? This may be
reported as the (a) dbz at a certain range (like 1 km). (b) noise temperature
(degrees Kelvin) or (c) power (dBm). Any are acceptable but dbz at a specific
range is most useful to meteorologists?
10. Where are they located? Mountain tops, valleys, near the sea/lakes? See excel
spread sheet for latitude/longitude information.
Note that the latitude/longitude can be filled out in different ways…. (i.e.,
lat,long = hhomm’ss” - use all 3 columns; or lat,long = hh.ddddd use left column;
or xxomm.dddd’ use two columns, etc….)
11. What is the height of the tower?
12. What is the Z-R relationship? For rain, for snow?
13. Are your radar synchronized in some ways like using a common time to start
scanning? Or do each radar operate on their own (start and stop independently)?
If the answer to the last question is yes, then how are radar mosaics generated
when the data arrives at different times?
Reference (if any):